Sunday, August 10, 2008

Sunnyside Sunday

I've decided to TRY, I repeat TRY, to start doing "Seeing the Sunnyside" Sundays. Taking something not-so-fun going on in our life and trying to see the sunnyside of it. For my first post, I need to see the sunnyside of home renovations.

Usually I just look at all the half-done things like the uncovered heating elements, lack of door and window trim, raw sheetrocked stairwell and so on and I just sigh and hate it. It's sooooooooo much work, and messy. And the kids always manage to find some piece of drywall or of sheetrock joint compound, or a dust bunny stuck in the heating elements or something that they can try to eat. It just feels like the renovations are so much work and THEN on TOP of it the kids getting into it all makes it ever more work.

The sunnyside: Our house will definitely be worth more! We paid $104,000 and it was in ROUGH shape when we bought it. Picture this: You walk in the door and are greeted by a cabinet above the sink that is drooping, as in you put dishes in there and they'll slide off. To the right is a beautiful set of old cabinets -- marred by the countertop that had been hacked out for a washer and dryer. To the far left is a weird cabinet area where a stove can barely fit and with a peeling laminate countertop. The floor is peeling linoleum. And it gets better...or worse. The room off the kitchen is faux wood paneling that clashes with the lovely coming-up stick on tiles. And the next room, which is led into through a large opening, is a different type of faux wood and an equally clashing tile floor. Only redeeming quality is the stairwell's staircase.Gorgeous and still is rather nice.

So that is what we had. Now we have all wide-board red mahogany-stained pine floors, freshly sheetrocked and painted walls, new kitchen cabinets and a Corian countertop. So we are definitely getting something for our money...That and it's what WE want it to be, not someone else's style. So I guess there is a sunnyside to the not-so-fun renovations.

Great idea...Sunnyside Sundays. I think we will be there soon as we are moving into a much higher priced area so we will be most likely buying a fixer-upper :) Good luck with it all. In the end it will be so worth it.